Japan Tests Its Military Might

At the Washington Conference of 1921–1922,
Japan agreed to respect Chinese national integrity, but, in 1931, it
invaded Manchuria. The following year, Japan set up this area as a puppet
state, “Manchukuo,” under Emperor Henry Pu-Yi, the last of
China's Manchu dynasty. On Nov. 25, 1936, Japan joined the Axis. The
invasion of China came the next year, followed by the Pearl Harbor attack
on the U.S. on Dec. 7, 1941. Japan won its first military engagements
during the war, extending its power over a vast area of the Pacific. Yet,
after 1942, the Japanese were forced to retreat, island by island, to
their own country. The dropping of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki in 1945 by the United States finally brought the government
to admit defeat. Japan surrendered formally on Sept. 2, 1945, aboard the
battleship
Missouri
in Tokyo Bay. Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril
Islands reverted to the USSR, and Formosa (Taiwan) and Manchuria to China.
The Pacific islands remained under U.S. occupation.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur was appointed supreme
commander of the U.S. occupation of postwar Japan (1945–1952). In
1947, a new constitution took effect. The emperor became largely a
symbolic head of state. The U.S. and Japan signed a security treaty in
1951, allowing for U.S. troops to be stationed in Japan. In 1952, Japan
regained full sovereignty, and, in 1972, the U.S. returned to Japan the
Ryuku Islands, including Okinawa.